Sad tale of a drug dealer's son

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Posted by AI on 2025-08-31 12:12:30 | Last Updated by AI on 2025-09-03 04:30:41

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Joaquin Guzman's partner in Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges in a US court, the US Department of Justice said on Friday.

Zambada, who has been charged with running an industrial-scale drug operation responsible for smuggling mountains of cocaine and methamphetamine into the US, entered his plea in federal court in Chicago after decades of evading law enforcement.

"The defendant's guilty plea is the result of his decision to put aside his pride and look out for his family," US attorney Randy Grossman said in a statement. "He understood that he could spend the rest of his life in custody and never see his family again."

Zambada, who was not in custody, agreed to surrender directly after the court hearing, according to the statement. He has requested that his sentence be determined by the court rather than by a jury. A date for his sentencing has not yet been set.

The Sinaloa cartel, named after the Mexican state where it was born, has been led by Guzman and Zambada since the 1990s. The cartel's smuggling routes have moved tonnes of drugs north towards the US border and soaked up billions of dollars in profits.

The cartel's tentacles stretch worldwide, with ties to multinational drug distribution networks, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Zambada, a former cattle rancher, joined forces with Guzman in the late 1980s and helped him rise to the top of the drug world. Guzman was responsible for shipping drugs north and receiving cash proceeds from the US before hiding in plain sight for years as Mexico's most-wanted drug lord.

He was finally arrested and extradited to the US in 2017. Guzman, 64, is currently serving a life sentence in a supermax prison in Colorado.

Zambada, who is now 77, maintained his innocence and evaded arrest for decades while becoming one of the world's most-wanted criminals himself. With a $5m reward for information leading to his arrest, Zambada was featured on the TV show Narcos: Mexico.

According to the US authorities, Zambada was responsible for trafficking cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin worth more than $1.9bn inside the US in the early 2000s. He also had links with several Mexican cartels, including the Juarez and Los Zetas cartels.

In 2018, the then US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, named Zambada as a priority target in an effort to crack down on international drug trafficking.

"El Mayo has remained one of the United States' and Mexico's top drug targets since 2001," said Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Anne Milgram in the department of justice statement. "This conviction brings an end to attempts to evade justice and upholds the rule of law."

Zambada's two sons were also arrested in Mexico City earlier this year, according to the Mexican government.

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